Over the past few months, I've been experimenting with book art and text. I've always loved books and poetry, even to the point of spending a significant portion of my life as a poet and creative writing instructor. Of course, I also love the visual arts.

I tend to go back and forth between the two, to the consternation of my friends and colleagues. Would the two ever merge, I wondered? It would certainly make life easier.

Just lately, I've been hatching ideas and birthing little projects that hint at possibility: maybe, just maybe, I can bring my two great loves together under one roof. I've been taking letterpress classes at Seattle's School of Visual Concepts and delving even deeper into artist books.

Here are some of the book arts I've been working on. Some have text, some are visual books only, written in non-alphabetic symbolic language. Some have encoded verbal meaning, some have only themselves. I like them all.

"And Now and Than And..." is a mixed media artist book based on text from Gertrude Stein's "The Making of Americans." There are 42 pages of painted grids representing the Polybius square-encoded text. This one is part of my Gertrude Stein Project (more here.)

"Hearthlight" is a sewn artist book, printed with archival ink on silk organza. The text is nine original linked poems inspired by a call for submissions by Page Boy Magazine here in Seattle; the poems are each seventeen-word short poems, or in Page Boy's terminology, "17s."

Page Boy says of them: "...17s are an old form, invented at Harry's Bar on 15th Ave E in Seattle during the fall of 2016...[they] consist simply of 17 words, that is their ONLY constrain..."

I was fairly taken with the form and wrote quite a few. These wound up linked, and printed as you see.

"Hope Codex" is an older book, but I've just managed to shoot it this week. It's an accordion-fold mixed media artist book, freestanding on custom quarter-moon legs. The text is also original, a two-layered poem created partly from the venerable Dadaist tradition of found text and cut-and-shuffle.

And this little book, "Infinite Divisibility," is probably my favorite. It has no text outside the cover title; it's done with drawing and monoprint on vellums and handmade kitikata papers.

I'll have these books and more at the upcoming Inscape Arts Open Studio. I also plan to have a broadside or two for sale, fresh off the SVC presses.

Speaking of living many lives, I'll also be wearing my Two Ponies Press hat that day. We have a new podcast coming out specially for Open Studio. Right outside my studio, too, we'll be featuring the work of Maggie Jiang. I met Maggie at Gage Academy a few years ago and I've enjoyed keeping up with her work ever since.

The series is based on the encoded poetry and prose of G. Stein. Using a basic Polybius square method, I translate text into a string of numbers, then into a visual grid, which I then work into various pieces of artwork. "Facts" (below) and "And Yes" will be on display through June 2.

"While math and art may seem like disciplines far apart, the Schack's upcoming exhibit helps demonstrate how mathematics has influenced art for centuries. The Intersection of Art + Math, presented in partnership with Art ꓵ Math by Seattle's Center on Contemporary Art (CoCA), offers a new perspective on how artists utilize math concepts and theories in the creation of their work. ....

The Intersection of Art + Math runs from April 26 - June 2, 2018, with an opening reception on Thursday, April 26 from 5-8pm...."

I just dropped off the artwork selected for Ryan James' Visual Impressions, opening in April. The jury selected one of my works on paper, "Gravity Well." Come see it in person, along with an entire gallery full of other gorgeous work. The opening reception will be held on April 12.

Meantime, the Ryan James Instagram feed is filled with work coming in from all over the country...check it out: @rjamesfinearts

I'm not leaving the Inscape Arts building, but I am moving up to the second floor...to 205, to be precise. It's a large space that I'll be splitting between a personal work space for me and a home for Two Ponies Press, particularly the Original Lines podcast.

Of course, the move has been dusty and exhausting, but it's almost over. I've made more Ikea trips this month than I have in the past ten years, I think.

Phil and I have built All the Things!

And though we still have a bit of work to do, I've been able to start work. This is my first official work in the new space, and it's one of twenty-odd sketches I'm making for a larger project.

Our next Open Studio isn't until June, and I hope the space will be ready to show to other people by then. Wish us luck....

What do a novelist, a travel writer, and a poet have to say about the idea of return?

On January 9 (2018, of course) I'll be reading at Vermillion Art Bar in Capitol Hill with Anca Szilagyi and Kathy Harding for At The Inkwell's reading series. I'll be reading some work from "Quiet Year," some older work, and a new poem or two too.

Since the Auburn Lit Fest marked the debut of my chapbook "The Quiet Year," it was nice to have such a good crowd for the reading. The judges were Marjorie Rommel, poet laureate of Auburn; David Horowitz of Rose Alley Press; and Robert Lashley, Seattle poet who won this year's Stranger Genius Award.

I also did a book arts demo...well, three demos, at the Two Ponies booth. It was a really great festival, with some fantastic authors and readers. I felt honored to be a part of it.

Here's a video of an artist book I started working on for the festival; I am still working on it.

Join me on August 5 in Seattle for Inscape Arts' semi-annual Open Studio. Coinciding this year with Seattle's new Art Fair, our Open Studio event should be a great one.

I'll be giving a reading from my new chapbook, "The Quiet Year," along with poets Brendan McBreen and James Rodgers. I'll also be exhibiting some of the paintings that went into "The Quiet Year" as well as some other good stuff.

Stop by #124 next door to the office on the first floor between 2 and 8 p.m.

Ryan James is a contemporary gallery in Kirkland, Washington (that's eastside Seattle to you) that is "focused on value growth artworks representing modern, abstract, and conceptual art views from both known and emerging WA artists."

The subscription service is new way to live with art as you collect: you can lease various pieces before you decide which to buy. To find my work, just mark the "Laura Allen" checkbox on the left of the screen...but do browse all the other gorgeous work too. The interface is fun and easy to use.

It's finally finished! My new art and poetry chapbook is finished, and is indie-printing as we speak.

I'll be debuting it at The Rainbow Cafe in Auburn on May 1. I'll be a featured reader at Striped Water Poets' monthly series, supported by the Auburn Arts Association and 4Culture.

The readings start at 7 p.m.. I'll have copies of the book for sale, too, or you can order a copy through the link below.

Excerpt from the title poem:

"...Said: the green gets over everythinglike a false rind, a quilt like palelichen crept from the edges of rocks,shoes, discarded paper. it keens in color. it is excessive. it hides withinits own trending entropy: it’s popularand all the cool kids have it, likea new mycelium under the skin..."